Feeling the Stones

Sir David Akers-Jones has been a major figure in the life and government of Hong Kong for many years. In this book he writes with a light and distinctive touch about his life, focusing more on the human than the administrative, but nonetheless providing many insights into the recent history of Hong Kong. The story starts with his leaving the Sussex Downs to join the Merchant Navy as a young officer in the last years of World War II. As his ships tramped around the ports of South East Asia, his life-long enthusiasm for Asia was born and, talking with the seamen, his facility with Asian languages too. But most of the story takes place in Hong Kong and China, and especially in the New Territories where he spent a large part of his career. There, as development spread from the packed streets of Kowloon to the paddy fields, he developed the trust and affection for the Chinese inhabitants of Hong Kong that has been such a characteristic and formative part of his attitude to Hong Kong and its future. From assisting the Yuen Long football team, Sir David became involved in the international organization of soccer.
This led to opportunities for wide travel in China and exceptional opportunities to learn directly about the People's Republic, experiences that set him apart from his colleagues in the colonial administration. These experiences give a distinctive perspective to his account of the events leading up to 1997 and the controversies of that period. This is a book for everyone with an interest in the recent history of Hong Kong and in an exceptional man who played a major part in that history as he ploughed a distinctive and individual, and sometimes controversial, path from District Officer to Acting Governor to Hong Kong Affairs Advisor.